Monitoring Desk
KARACHI: South Africa’s leg-spinner and number one Twenty20 International (T20I) bowler Tabraiz Shamsi, in an interview with PakPassion.net, expressed eagerness to play in the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
When asked if the 31-year-old wanted to play in the PSL, the leg-spinner responded with a resounding yes.
“Yes definitely. I’ve been fortunate enough to play in the Caribbean Premier League and it was after I went to the CPL and did well that domestic teams in South Africa started to take me seriously and giving me regular game time and then I got picked for the national team after playing CPL and IPL,” Tabraiz said.
The leg-spinner claimed that playing in the leagues around the world had helped him significantly.
“I find that it has helped my game quite a lot playing in the CPL, IPL and English County Cricket. People see it as a money thing and say that the players are participating in these tournaments for greed. Personally speaking, of course you do earn a bit of money but what is most important are the things that you learn from the people who are not really in your circle.
So, you are hearing different chats from West Indian players or Indian players and you are learning about the different ways people think about the game and train. You pick up the small things like that and I think that sort of exposure has really accelerated my growth as a spin-bowler,” he said.
Tabraiz Shamsi praises ‘quality batsman’ Babar Azam
South Africa’s leg-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi, in an interview with PakPassion.net, praised Pakistan’s ‘quality batsman’ Babar Azam while claiming that just because he did not get the prolific batsman out did not mean he was unsuccessful.
The 31-year-old revealed that a lot of planning was involved when it came to bowling in international cricket. “Babar Azam is a quality batsman. I didn’t get him out in this series but that isn’t always the end goal and doesn’t necessarily mean that you were unsuccessful. There’s a lot of planning that goes into it and I don’t tend to worry about technical aspects of bowling because I feel that my body will just tell me how to get the ball wherever I want it to go if I have been practising enough,” Shamsi said.
“I do like to watch a lot of footage and I do like to plan a lot and to bowl a lot in the nets. I work with the video analysts and sit down and try to work batsmen out and see where most likely you will get success against them and to prevent them scoring runs against you. A lot of the work gets done behind the scenes and that’s something I enjoy,” he added.
The leg-spinner believed that the series against Pakistan was a great opportunity for players to gain more experience, after many top South African cricketers decided to leave for the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“It is what it is, and you just have to get on with the job. The team that was selected consisted of players who have done well in domestic cricket and they are very good players. It was a good opportunity for us to give more experience to other guys and if you look at our T20 team we are relatively inexperienced including myself,” he said.
“It was a nice challenge because Pakistan is a very strong team and they obviously brought their full-strength team and had three guys at the top of the order who were on fire and I don’t think I have ever been a part of a series where the top opposition batsmen have been in form at the same time and basically performing every single game or have 2 out of the 3 performing in every single game. It was a nice challenge, obviously the results weren’t what we wanted but in terms of experience such series can teach you a lot as well,” he concluded.
